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How to teach your kids to budget
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Teaching our children to budget may seem like a hard thing to do but it can be make easy and fun for the both of you. When I was younger my mother taught all of her children to budget their allowance. We knew every week we had three jars to place our money into. There was a saving jar, a giving jar and a spending jar. I always had something I was saving for as a young child and would later purchase it. I knew and understood the value of the dollar. How to give to the less fortunate. I learn you could not always have what you wanted right away but you could save to get it. There are three easy step to help you child budget their allowance by saving money, by giving to charities and by spend money.
When I would first receive my allowance, I would put an amount in my saving jar. This jar contained a picture of an item I wanted. It could be anything large or small. I would put as much as I wanted into the jar. Teaching children to save is made easier if they are saving for a thing they may want. I knew at times, I would save more money and at other times I would save less money. Children will be excited to save when they know what they are saving for. The next jar we were to put money in was the giving jar.
When I would place money in the giving jar, I knew were the money was going. I had picked a charity to give my money to; which was the Christmas Shoe Boxes. I would buy toys, hygiene and candy to going the box. I knew a child over seas would receive Christmas present. Teaching children to budget will give them a sense of purpose. Giving to a good charity will give them a sense of purpose. I was never told how much money to put in, it was what ever I felt was right. The last jar was my spending money.
Then I place the rest of my money in my spending jar. I could buy candy, soda, buy lunch at school and buy treats. I was allowed to spend my money, but when it ran out I did not have any spending money. Teaching children to budget means you need to allow them to spend some of their money to learn responsible for it. You can help them by letting them know when the family my go out to buy lunch or when their is a shopping trip coming up. This will give them some idea of where they may want to spend their money. I was always able to see where my money was going and learned to budget it. This was a fun time we could learn about money and teach us the value of a dollar.
When my mother first introduce the concept of the three jars, she had us decorate our jars. This made it personal. We than went into magazine to look for thing were we going to save for and placed them in our saving jar. It may be tough at first but you will be teaching you child a valuable lesson: budgeting their money.
